Oct22

manoomin and meeting.

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last week i joined a small group taking a seasonal cooking lesson

learning to make wild rice soup with fresh veggies, herbs and spices

along with a savory focaccia with herbs, garlic, and olive oil

(some ingredients grown in the park’s gardens)

we began with a lesson on wild rice (manoomin)

which isn’t a rice at all, it’s a grass

from the waters of northern Mnnesota

where the Ojibwe live

where our instructor grew up

very close to the Canadian border

 along with a lesson about the traditional harvesting and processing of it:

*(see below)

lots of dicing, slicing, measuring, mixing, stirring, tasting, timing,

laughing, questions, comments, coffee

some people chose to be hands on, some to observe

after a couple of hours

the soup bubbled

the bread was golden

we shared our meal

at a long table

where our last lesson

was learning about each other.

—

‘the joy of cooking is that you get to touch it and play with the ingredients and play with them. it’s a craft.’

-stanley tucci, american actor

—

*Traditional Harvesting Steps

  • The Team: Two people ride in a canoe. One sits in the stern and gently pushes or steers the boat through the shallow water with a long pole. The other kneels or sits in the bow with two smooth cedar sticks (called knockers or bawa’iganaakoog).
  • The Tapping: One stick gently pulls a cluster of stalks over the canoe, while the other stick taps the stalks twice like a heartbeat to dislodge only the ripe kernels.
  • The Reseeding: Unripe grains stay on the plant, and many mature seeds fall into the water to replant the next season’s crop.
Traditional Processing Steps
  • Drying (Curing): Spread the freshly harvested “green” rice out in a thin layer in the sun or shade for a day or two to let surface moisture evaporate and prevent mold.
  • Parching: Heat the rice in a large metal or cast-iron kettle over an open wood fire. Stir constantly with a wooden paddle so the grains toast evenly, harden the kernel, and make the outer hull brittle.
  • Jigging (Threshing): Place the warm, parched rice into a clean pit lined with clean canvas or a wood-lined tub. A person wearing clean moccasins or soft-soled shoes gently dances or treads on the rice to crush and separate the tight hulls from the grain.
  • Winnowing: Pour or toss the threshed rice upward into the breeze using a birch bark basket or shallow tray. The wind blows away the lightweight chaff and dust, leaving the clean, dark wild rice behind.
If you plan to harvest wild rice in Minnesota, tribal regulations and state permits have strict rules on dates and who is allowed to harvest on reservation waters.
—
source credits: nature conservancy, ann arbor parks and rec, minnesota deptartment of natural resources

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64 responses »

        • That’s beautiful. Years after I was teaching, I went back to a local college to take courses to specialize in early childhood teaching. It was a catholic university, but they were liberal in their approach to things and social justice warriors. I became friendly with a young woman in my class who was a nun from Nigeria. She was going to school to get her degree and go back to Nigeria to teach in her community. When we come to class all of us after a long day of teaching, everyone would share their stories of ups and downs, and one particular day I was shared about something that had happened really not huge but a little bit disappointing. I love to cook of my class and that day we had planned to make bread. We got to the oven at school. It wasn’t working. I went on with my little tale of whoa and she turned to me and said you know where I come from we dig a hole and bake our bread in the dirt. My issue was absolutely nothing. It was a point of privilege and she still used the old ways where she lived because that’s what they had to work with and it was tradition. This immediately shifted my perspective, and I understood that I had nothing to worry about or complain about.

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          • Walk a mile in someone elses shoes… my ma woukd always tell me this when I complained about anything. We are truly blessed in this country in many ways. Though we dont have to travel very far to see how very blessed we are. I know a kid who still uses an icebox as a temporary fridge. Too poor to own a refrigerator. Like you said, it changes our perspective very quickly.

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    • i love how she told us that she grew up doing this with her dad from the time she was quite young. yes, i learned so much from her, and as soon as she said ‘hotdish’ i remembered you talking about it

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